A 10 Gb/s BiCMOS adaptive cable equalizer

A 10 Gb/s adaptive equalizer IC using SiGe BiCMOS technology is described. The circuit consists of the combination of an analog equalizer and an adaptive feedback loop for minimizing the inter-symbol interference (ISI) for a variety of cable characteristics. The adaptive loop functions using a novel slope-detection circuit which has a characteristic that correlates closely with the amount of ISI. The chip occupies an area of 0.87 mm/spl times/0.81 mm and consumes a power of 350 mW with 3.3 V power supply. This adaptive equalizer is able to compensate for a cable loss up to 22dB at 5 GHz while maintaining a low bit-error rate.